In a two-peaked tent on the University of Arizona campus, classicists cradled the spine of Homer’s “Odyssey.”
In 10-minute increments, they completed a non-stop 11-hour reading of this ancient poem — translated by Emily Wilson — at a volume so intimate you had to tuck under the tent to hear it.
The Homerathon, an annual event presented by Eta Sigma Phi (the Classics Honors Society), the Department of Religious Studies and Classics and the College of Humanities, featured classics students and teachers reading page by page the 592 pages of Homer’s epic “Odyssey,” chunked into 24 books.
Throughout that recent Wednesday, graduate students, professors and undergraduates delivered lines theatrically as students on bikes and on foot strolled past. A few stopped to listen or gave curious looks before continuing their commutes.
Classics Professor Courtney Friesen and his son Evan read an ancient drama for Eta Sigma Phi's annual Homerathon on Nov. 8. Dozens of UA students and faculty members participated in the annual event.
Readers switched off every 10 minutes, and every hour on the hour, volunteers delivered presentations, everything from personal digressions to readings of other ancient excerpts, to break up the readings.
The Homerathon readers, made up of anywhere from five to two dozen people at a time, were sitting in two dozen white chairs, and while they anxiously awaited their turns, they studied Greek vocabulary or exchanged friendly greetings. As the day elapsed, listeners moved their chairs to avoid the midday sun.
Nicholas Kaplan, a second-year UA student double majoring in information science and classics, was one of four students who stayed until the dark hour of 7:30 p.m. to complete the reading of the famous poem. As the four students rotated reading the remaining 37 pages, the annual SlutWalk highlighting victim blaming and rape culture in the U.S. was in full gear just across the walkway.
“Pound Town” by Sexyy Red and Tay Keith resounded from event speakers while the undergraduates maintained their poetic lines of Homer. But even they couldn’t help themselves from dancing and giggling along to the hip-hop beats as they inched closer to the end of Homer’s ancient text.
“It’s Homerathon x SlutWalk, the crossover we needed,” joked Ruby Staczek, president of Eta Sigma Phi.
This was the classics major’s second year helping the honor society organize the Homerathon.
Staczek said she was first drawn to study classics when she read Plato’s “Republic” in high school. In college, she took an ancient philosophy class and discovered a desire to learn ancient languages and study the nuances lost in translation.
“Sometimes when it’s 12 a.m. and I’m sitting studying my Greek I’ll be like, ‘I won’t be able to speak this, it’s a dead language,’” Staczek said. “But then there’ll be those moments where I’m reading a famous passage in Homer and I understand why I’m putting all these hours into a language that I won’t be able to speak. I still think there’s a lot to get out of it.”
University of Arizona Associate Professor Robert Groves, who teaches Greek and Latin literature, said that this all-day study of Homer is celebratory but isn’t meant to position Greco-Roman culture above other facets of classical literature.
“One of the reasons people should care about classics is because it has been so formative for so many parts of the world,” said Groves, who has been studying classics for more than 25 years. “The Greeks and Romans put out ideas that have been chewed on and reinterpreted over the millennia in Europe, Africa, Asia that help explain why the world is how it is today.”
“It’s a way of understanding the way the world works, understanding the way that humans fit into the world and of digesting those things in a really fascinating, robust way,” he added.
Kaplan said he wished there was more attention on the vastness and nuance of what is bound by classics. Outside of Greco-Roman study, it includes Egypt, Persia and other ancient civilizations.
“It’s a very challenging field of study,” Kaplan said. “It’s fun for me, but the liberal arts aren’t necessarily these easy cop-out things. I’m learning a language that’s 2,500 years old.”
The UA Classics Department offers major emphases in Classical Civilizations and Classical Languages. Learn more at classics.arizona.edu.
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